Beautiful
by Stronger than you since 1915
Summary: Eating disorders are a hard thing to deal with. They make you feel alone even when you're surrounded by people that love you. This is the story of a girl who is literally starving herself to death and the boy who tried to save her. Rated M for content.
1. The Price of Beauty

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Just a little deeper, there is still something there. That cake you ate will go straight to your thighs. Your fat, flabby thighs. You have gained a pound, better get to the gym quick and run it off, run until your legs give out. Your chubby legs. Stop crying you useless lump, you are the one who will not stop eating.

The water below turns murky, churning with bits of brown, white, orange, whatever you stuffed down when no one was around. But when is anyone around, they have all left have they not? Because you got fat. "_Look how huge she is!_" your peers laughed, _what a cow_, they cried. No one talked to you, even your father faded, the love of his daughter not enough to keep him around.

You dry-heave and curse me to the pits of hell. But I cannot be damned, for I am you, my dearest girl. I am you as you are me, fed by your insanity. Your disease. Your stomach churns in agony, deprived of the food it once cradled so lovingly. You collapse on the floor, your face red and your eyes teary, your stomach bulges against that shirt.

You invited me into your mind you know. The first time you purged I came knocking, invaded your spirit and took over. You are the only one to blame. That first time three years ago when you were fourteen, when you realized you were nothing but a monstrosity. I hear you trying to fight me, it will not work I tell you. I will not leave unless you stop. Which you never will.

You are still on the floor. My god, you are a sad excuse for human. If you had any dignity you would fight back, I would enjoy that. A sound is heard and you silence your whimpering to hear thumping and the jangle of keys.

What is this? Daddy is home from work. How exciting, he returns while you are still in the bathroom, sniveling like a baby. Your mouth tastes of bile so you drag yourself off the floor and to the sink and rinse it with water. You take your toothbrush in hand and coat the bristles with toothpaste which stings your mouth the mint is too strong. Oh well, you cannot stand the taste you scrub harder, drawing blood from your gums.

The white foam you spit into the sink is tinged pink. Wash it down the sink then idiot do not stare at it. You abandon your toothbrush on the counter and return to your room to put on your workout clothes and shoes. You leave the house without telling father where you are headed; it is not like he cares anyway. Into your truck and to the gym, the only one in town. Good thing it has a treadmill or you would be fucked.

No one is there except a few employees. No wait; there is a man there, on the rowing machine at the back of the room. Stop staring you whore, he will not want you. Turn on the machine, start jogging to warm up. Increase the speed, your breathing quickens. The man turns to look at you, your stomach is flopping and he is disgusted, you look away in shame.

The speed is faster still; you are covered in stinking perspiration. You wish for water but I will not let you, you will retain it and blow up like a beach ball. You look up to see the man has moved to the leg lift, only a few machines down from you. He is staring at you again, his eyes transfixed on you as he lifts, working his calves.

Put your head down wench and pick up the pace! You gasp for breath now, heavily drenched in sweat and your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. I laugh at your pain. The man looks at you concerned, tell him to back off, go away! You have been running for an hour and I think you are about to collapse, I suppose you may take a break and sit for a while, but only for a few minutes.

You turn the machine off, grab a towel and wipe your sopping forehead, the hair sticks to it, damp and greasy. You spy a water fountain and beg for a sip. Go then, when your become so large that no man will ever bed you then you will wish you had listened to me and kept running.

You all but fall onto the water and guzzle it down like a heifer. Which is what you are, a stinking fat heifer who will remain a virgin forever. You cry inside and I dance on your misery, thriving on how it feeds me, gives me strength so that I may rule you forever.

If you do not like me that is your own fault, you are the one propelling me forward by listening to my commands and building my power over your life, like wood into the fire. Go now, little girl. Go home for I fear that man is contemplating approaching you, that he will want to strike up a conversation. I cannot have that.

If you have a shoulder to cry I will die, you will be strengthened by him and I will wither away into nothingness, only a distant memory of the monster that haunted you. I know I am a monster, but I am your monster.

"Hello, are you alright?" it is the man. He has decided to come and talk to you. He is striking and you see now that he is not much older than you. His features are perfection, like a sculpture created at the hands of a master.

I beg you do not answer; I will crumble like dust once you reply. You step away from the water fountain and wipe the stray drops from your mouth with the towel. Do not say a word!

"I'm fine, just a little thirsty." I can feel myself dying, already so weak from those six words alone. He smiles at you and I die a little more, how could one person make such a difference? He laughs and you smile as well, killing me again. Your stomach rumbles and you think of what you did earlier in the bathroom and I strengthen a bit.

He offers a hand and I lose what I just gained once you put your fingers against the broad palm of his hand. He grasps it and shakes it. "My name is Edward." you smile again and I am fading fast. "Bella." you reply and I am gone. But I stay in your sub-conscience, waiting for the next time you return to me, crawling on your hands and knees, begging for my help.

How could you leave me behind so easily? All I ever wanted was to make you beautiful.

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**One of the stranger things I have written. Yes, this was about bulimia, not exactly original but I was inspired after watching a couple of videos on YouTube about eating disorders. The narrator was Bella kind of talking to herself she literally was semi-insane. Hope you enjoyed! I am also working on the next How I Found Love chapter, I hope to have it out real soon! Please send me your thoughts!**


	2. The Worst Monster of All

**If Bella thought her life was smooth sailing now she was wrong. I thought it would be fun to continue this story a little. I was inspired while in the shower of all places.**

_Why can't anyone lose weight without everybody getting all pissy!_ Bella stormed into her room, tears streaming down her furiously red face. She angrily slammed her purse down onto the bed, pills rattling in the bottle, and sat down heavily on the hardwood floor, probably bruising her coccyx.

How come she couldn't be proud of the ten pounds she'd finally lost? Who cared if her collarbone stuck out the way it did? They were just jealous that they couldn't lose like she could. They didn't have her discipline, her will to be the skinniest girl around.

She looks up from her hands when the doorbell rings. _Ring ring ringing. Knock knock knocking. _She doesn't have to wonder who it is; he'd followed when she stormed from the cafeteria, damning them all to hell. She had run to her car, struggling to twist the key in the ignition, feeling as if her frail wrist would snap with the action.

He had followed, shouting for her to stop, "You need help!" he cried. She didn't want help, she had already gone to that prison in Seattle and wasn't about to go again. Who were they to tell her what she was doing was wrong? At least she was doing something to prevent adding to the already enormous group of obese Americans.

Bella didn't move from her spot on the floor, she didn't want Edward anywhere near her at the moment. He was the leader of the mob out to get her; to stuff food down her throat and make her get fat, to make her balloon from a size zero to size thirteen. She would go back to her old purging ways before she let that happen.

It took only a few months after she met Edward in the gym for her to gain twenty five pounds of happy weight, eating without caution when she was with him, the boy who made her so happy. She had gone to rehab for a month to 'cure' her of her bulimia and for the next four months she was a blissfully happy, normal teenager with a past she was all too ready to forget.

And Edward was there to help her forget. Buying her chocolates and bringing her fast food for lunch whenever he visited her at school and had time off from work. It wasn't until her eighteenth birthday, after eating two enormous pieces of cake that she realized how much weight she had really gained. She looked into the mirror, her face flushed from laughter, and suddenly the giggles stopped in her throat.

She leaned over the counter and almost had her nose pressed to the glass. Her skin was oily and blemished, her cheeks were round, the bones of her collar weren't visible, her muffintops were threatening to tear her jeans in half, and her upper arms wobbled as she shook them back and forth, pinching the fat in horror.

'_I can't go on like this_.' She whispered, horrified. She vowed to start anew. The school year had just begun but that meant she could start the following year a whole new, extremely thin, person.

So began her battle with food. She found it rather easy to refuse to eat at first but within a few weeks she discovered how hard it really was to skip so many meals. But it was the quick results that kept her going. She loved how she could lose five pounds in a quarter of the time it would take with regular diet and exercise. She loved the rush she got from not eating and how big her clothes were getting on her.

Too bad everyone else noticed too. Edward, of course realized it first.

"Are you puking again?" he whispered to her. They were laying together on the couch in her living room, Charlie sitting at the kitchen table looking over paperwork. He hadn't approved of their relationship at first; Edward was three years older than his daughter and had several tattoos, but once he saw how happy he made his previously depressed little girl he got over it more or less. At least he let them spend time together. Even if he was seated in the other room.

"Of course not." Bella mumbled back. No need to mention that she didn't _have_ anything to puke up most of the time anyway. He was discreetly trying to feel her stomach so she quickly rolled over to face him, ceasing his probing fingers from feeling her flattening belly. She tucked her head under his chin and closed her eyes, praying that he would drop the subject in favor of silent snuggling. Thankfully he did.

By the time Bella had dropped to 100 pounds _everyone _started to notice. Bella's new friends, one of whom was Edward's cousin Alice, were the next to start questioning Bella's rapid, scary weight loss. Alice, a rather thin girl, finally said something when a pair of her own pants that were snug on her hung loose on Bella's hips.

"Hey Bella how much do you weigh?" Bella had been average sized when she met Alice and she thought the girl was around 130 when they first met. Alice moved to Forks at the start of the summer to live with her aunt and uncle since things at home weren't working too well. Edward and Bella had been dating for a few weeks and once Alice was moved in she was promptly introduced to the sweet, beautiful girl Edward had helped save from the horrible clutches of bulimia. Now it was the following spring and the once healthy girl was a skeleton of her former self.

"Yeah Bella," Angela Weber joined the conversation, worried as Alice was, "You have to be like 100 pounds at the most. What happened to you?"

'_She's just jealous'_, Bella thought to herself, she must be 130 or more! _Fat cow,_ she whispered in her mind.

Bella hesitated and carefully cut up the tiny apple in front of her. She placed a small sliver on her tongue, chewed, and swallowed before answering. "About 115 I guess." It was a bit of a stretch, a twenty five pound stretch actually. She hadn't weight 115 for a while now. They didn't need to know, also, that the apple she had cut up into dozens of little pieces was the only thing she had eaten since the apple yesterday.

Alice looked at the tiny girl across from her, and leaned forward, "That's bull-" she was cut off as Edward, with a visitors pass stuck to his shirt, slid into the chair next to Bella and planted a kiss on her cheek. Alice straightened and went back to her own lunch. Bella watched Angela and Alice giving each other looks out of the corner of her eye, pretending to be enamored in Edward's recounting of his morning at work but really plotting how to keep them quiet.

"Bella open the door please." Edward tried the door handle again but it wouldn't budge. Bella didn't say anything, she just continued sitting on the floor, her butt starting to hurt from how hard she had sat down on it. She didn't care about the pain; it actually had a pleasant sort of throb.

At least she wasn't weak enough to actually hack her skin open with a razor. She hated those weak fools that claimed cutting was the only way to 'feel' anything. She would never stoop so low. The only body mutilation she had ever taken part in was getting her ears pierced. Also once more with Alice at the end of the summer, one of the last good times she would have before she changed it all.

"Please dad, Alice has wanted to go for the longest time!" Bella was begging her father, yet again, for him to allow her to drive with Alice to Port Angeles to visit the tattoo and body piercing parlor said to have a good reputation. Alice's aunt and uncle already agreed now it was Charlie's turn…

"I just don't get why you want to ruin your pretty face." That was always his lame excuse. _You're too pretty for that sort of thing. Just think of the nasty scar it will leave. What happens when you're old and you regret it?_ Bella didn't understand why he was against it and definitely knew it wasn't because she was too pretty for it. She secretly thought he believed only African tribes do that stuff for religious reasons. And it wasn't exactly a secret that Charlie was just a little bit prejudiced against other races.

"You do realize I'll do this eventually without your permission. You should just give me your blessing now rather than have me go behind your back." She'd already explained how she needed to get these experiences over with while she was still young so she could do it before she got too old. She already told him how badly she wanted it, how much she had thought it over, and that she would pay for it herself. Now it was time to tell him the bitter truth; she was getting her nose pierced whether he liked it or not.

Charlie looked at her, stunned at the honesty, "Okay." He finally gave in, signing his name on the release form all while shaking his head and thinking to himself, '_Where the hell did she learn to negotiate like that?' _He liked to think it was from him but of course it was just a natural perk from being a teenager. "I am going with you I hope you know. I want to see this place and how clean it is, meet the piercer and see how long he's been working and what his qualifications are. He'll get the full Chief of Police investigation before laying hands on my baby."

Bella rolled her eyes but smiled affectionately at her dad, taking the paper from him and immediately bounding up the stairs to her room to call Alice about the good news.

It had hurt like nothing she'd ever felt before but having the hoop in the sensitive cartilage in between her nostrils made Bella unbelievably happy. She had held Edward's and Alice's hand so tightly that when the needle finally came Alice squealed with her. Alice, unlike Bella, got the left of her upper lip, commonly referred to as the Monroe. Alice took the pain better than Bella, only squeezing her eyes shut against the pinch of the needle.

They had been so excited, feeling so rebellious even though they had the permission of their parents/ aunt and uncle who watched the whole ordeal with an uneasy acceptance. Carlisle and Esme, Alice's guardians, accepted the idea easier than Charlie, knowing that refusing Alice would be useless. Esme had even entertained the idea of joining the girls on the chair but it was nothing more than a fleeting thought that passed as soon as she finished the laundry.

The man who pierced them was going over the care needed when Edward walked over to his parents who watched the bouncing girls with a quiet admiration. "Do you think she is the one Edward?" Esme whispered to him, holding onto his hand but not looking into his eyes. He stared at Bella's slim but filling frame from behind, loving how she much she had gained since May when they met, back when she had looked so close to breaking. Now in August, she was at a lovely healthy weight; the perfect weight for him.

"I want her to be, but we're both still so young that I can't be sure. She makes me unbelievably happy and I can only hope we last." Esme looked at him then, pride in her glistening eyes, shining with gathering tears. She released her hold on his hand and laid it on his cheek, stroking the slight stubble on his face; he had never been an avid shaver.

Edward looked down at his mother, knowing his declaration had touched her heart; it was proof that she had raised him well. She wanted to cry but instead pulled him to her chest and hugged him, running her fingers through his hair and trying to convey how much she loved him and how proud she was.

Bella told Edward she was bulimic two weeks after they met, he was the first to know. It was one of the most uncomfortable things she had ever done; she was telling a three year old secret to a guy she had know for such a short amount of time. It was the fact that she felt their relationship was quickly escalating to more than just good friends and she knew it was better to tell him sooner rather than later.

"Edward I have to tell you something and I'm not sure you'll like it." They were out to lunch on a beautifully sunny and cloudless day. June had just started, Bella's junior year was almost over, and Edward's 21st birthday was approaching. It was a busy month.

Bella was relying on the fact that Edward was older therefore more mature and wouldn't react with disgust as a regular high school boy would do. "What is it?" she could see the worry in his eyes as he wiped the burger grease from the corners of his mouth with a crumpled napkin. She hesitated, rearranging her fries yet again in order to gather her words, as she had been doing ever since they got their order.

"I'm… sick. Not like physically but," she had to swallow the urge to purge before continuing; even though the monster had left she still had urges, "I'm sick mentally. I think I need help." She told him everything about how she started. How she had binged and purged for the past three years. Ballooning to horrible sizes and then dropping to unimaginable lows. He listened with sorrow as she told him how he had given her the will to seek help just by talking to her at the gym.

"I lost all my friends almost as soon as I started. I haven't talked to my dad in a real conversation for almost three years. How is it that you come along and change things instantly?" Edward was holding her, hugging her to his chest as she cried out her story. She was crying partly from the memories and partly from how _good_ it felt to be held by someone.

"Do you want help? Will you tell your dad and get treatment?" she nodded vehemently, wiping the tears off her cheeks and trying to regain some composure. He kissed her then, pulling her to him by the back of her neck and covering her trembling lips with his own. She knew then that he had been her savior and would do anything for him…well until the next monster came along, bigger and badder than the last one.

"Bella please, I can't lose you." Edward had slid down the door and was now sitting with his back pressed against it, his shadow showing through the crack at the bottom. The sane part of Bella cried even harder, knowing that she had caused him pain. The part of her that didn't care about anything but being skinny scoffed at the weak boy on the other side of the door.

"I can't help myself." She whispered, lying curled into a ball of bones on the floor, her back facing the door. Her shoulder and hip were aching from digging into the wood but they were quickly going numb, thank goodness. Tear were streaming down her gaunt face, wetting her hair into a sticky mess. She lifted up a section of it, noticing how dull and lifeless it was, no longer shiny.

"Then let me help you." Edward whispered back. His voice sounded different, more determined. That was all Bella could think about before she started fading. She hadn't eaten for the past three days and now her body was trying to shut down. She was unconscious when Edward finally kicked down the door, tears still dripping into her dead hair.

**Should that be it? Should it end like that or should there be a real ending? Ahaha nobody knows!**


	3. Welcome to Hell

**I totally forgot to write this chapter. I decide to continue this story a year after starting it and I blatantly just forget to write the third chapter. As if I thought the story would just write itself. Oh my I am quite the forgetful franny aren't I? Thanks to those that enjoyed my twisted little story, I think it's about to get worse because we are about to actually read Bella's point of view. Be warned, she cusses a lot because I feel that is how her character would be in this situation. Yikes. Here's chapter three I guess… Oh and I mean no disrespect to the Moore Center, just using it for my story (:**

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Bella's POV

"Rosalie you have a phone call." The orderly poked her head around the door jamb, interrupting the conversation between my roommate and me, and left without another word. Rose rolled her eyes and, with much effort and assistance from the bed frame, stood up from the floor where we had been whispering. I watched her as she left, seeing the white of the walls through the space in between her thighs.

She was a starver like me. Although she did have three years more under her belt than I did. That bitch. Rosalie was the stereotypical anorexic; beautiful, popular, rich, only child, with parents who divorced when she was nine. Like too many others she starved as a way to '_deal with the pain_' and get back at her parents for subjecting her to the horrors of swapping beds every other week. Way to go Rose, way to make those motherfuckers pay for not staying married.

She was my only friend in this hell but I still thought she was the stupidest whore I've ever met. At least she wasn't a cutter like half of the other whiny little bitches in this place. The Moore Center. _Serving Bellevue, Seattle, and the entire Puget Sound Region since 1991_. And laughing all the way to the bank too, no doubt. In the three weeks that I had been forced to stay here there has been no breakthrough whatsoever in my case. Rosalie has been here for three months and the doctors have no hope for her to be going home yet. Why don't they just admit failure and send us all home?

At least I got free drugs.

"Bella why don't you come watch tv with us?" I rolled my head off the side of the mattress to glare at the little slut at the door and tell her to fuck off but I stopped when I saw who it was, too angry before to even recognise the voice. It was Jane, the 15 year old girl who had passed out on the treadmill. The entire right side of her face had been ripped apart by the belt, leaving her otherwise beautiful face horribly disfigured with a nasty layer of puckered pink flesh. She lay on the floor with the treadmill still tearing her up for almost twenty minutes until someone else came into the gym where she was running and called an ambulance.

Other than Rosalie she was the only one I tolerated. "Sure Jane, let me put on my pants though." Rose and I had been squatting between our beds in nothing but oversized sweaters, comparing the size of our thighs. We didn't reach a decision but I knew mine were thinner. I stood up and almost pitched over from the dark spots clouding my vision and the floor spinning. I sat down on my bed and dug through my suitcase until I found a pair of comfortable, and _warming_, sweats.

Once I had mustered enough energy to lift my legs and shove them through the holes in my pants I stood up and immediately grabbed my temples, the world spinning again. Jane squeaked in concern but since she was here for the same reason as me she didn't say anything. She grabbed my hand and we slowly hobbled to the couches in the television room where the majority of the girls spent their days.

"Oh, my god Bella actually stopping scissoring with Rosalie long enough to join the rest of us." My head whipped to the right to stare at the bitch who dared say that. It turned out to be Lauren, the skank who thought she ran the place. Wake up bitch you're in the same place as the rest of us because you're no different than anyone.

"Fuck you, bitch, as least I don't fuck the orderlies for drugs or carve myself up like a goddamn Christmas turkey." Lauren was here because she got caught at school giving a guy head at school and that sent her parents over the edge; they knew about her puking and cutting, the school incident just gave them the incentive they needed to send her away.

She didn't reply. Jane giggled and collapsed onto an empty couch, pulling me down with her. I pulled two blankets from a stack on the side of the couch and wrapped both around my shoulders, on the brink of shivering so hard my teeth fell out. The doctors told me I didn't have the body fat to regulate a normal body temperature. They thought it would scare me, as if the thought of freezing to death would frighten me back to normality.

"What is this shit we're watching?" It was some pale bitch surrounded by midgets and smiling animals. It looked familiar, as if I had seen it many years ago but not cared enough to actually remember what I was watching. Someone mumbled _Snow White_ and I snorted, how sad was I that I couldn't even remember the first Disney princess movie.

Rosalie came in a few minutes later and lifted the blankets off my shoulder and wrapped them around her own, snuggling next to me, fawning over how much she loved the movie. At least she recognised it. It wasn't long before I tuned the movie out, getting lost in my thoughts. As usual my mind took me back to the day that landed me in rehab for the second time…

* * *

I don't remember this happening, only what I had been told. I passed out from hunger and Edward busted down my door, revealing an unconscious me lying in a bony heap on my bedroom floor. Edward said he thought I was dead, he was crying as if I were when he told me this. He scooped me up in his _big, strong arms_ and carried me_ oh so valiantly_ to his speedy little car where he sped off to the hospital, phoning his dad that we were on the way.

The whole time he was telling me this all I cared about was the sugar water they were pumping into my veins. I could just see my thighs ballooning back to grotesque ham hocks and my arms growing soft and jiggly, fat enough to fly away with. The whole time Edward spoke to me I was thinking about how long I would have to run and how many days without eating I would go in order to reverse the efforts of the hospital.

All I looked forward to was being released and continuing right where I left off before I had been overtaken by a momentary bout of weakness. I was never given that chance. As soon as Charlie heard I was in the hospital from not eating he told me I was going to the Moore Center. I didn't even get to pack my own bags; Edward has Alice go into my room and pack nearly every piece of clothing I owned, as if I would be staying there forever. Maybe I would.

While Alice was in my room she, of course, found my stash of emergency laxatives. When she brought my suitcase she had all three boxes in her hand with a look on her face that told me she wasn't even surprised to see that I had them. "Oh good," I said, feigning happiness, "I was worried I wouldn't have time to get them. Thank you for being _so_ considerate dear." Then she threw the boxes of pills on the bed and ran out crying.

Edward had been sitting there watching the whole time and, typical of him, he had to say something. "Why are you so cruel? Do you not care about how much you're hurting everyone that loves you? Do you not think how much pain we're all in, knowing that you're killing yourself? Well? Do you?" tears were rolling down his face as he shook my shoulders, gently but still enough to rattle me.

"Nobody loves me." I mumbled, barely audible to my own ears. I could feel tears trying to creep out from my eyes but I bit down on my tongue to tell them they had no right. I hadn't cried ever since I began this and I wasn't about to let Edward ruin this for me. Part of what I did was being strong and I couldn't go around crying and ruining all I had achieved.

"What?" he asked, his voice was as sharp as the IV they stuck in my arm, stabbing me all over with its deadly spike, filling me with its poisonous words. "Answer me right now Bella. What did you just say? Tell me, tell me now!" I was covering my face, shaking my head, and trying to force the tears away. Edward tried to pull my hands from my face but I wouldn't budge, murmuring _no no no_ until it became a mantra that kept in time with the rocking of my body.

"No… no… no… NO NO NO NO NO _NO!"_ I grabbed handfuls of my hair and started tugging trying to cause enough physical pain to keep the tears that were waging war on me, clogging my throat and turning the faucets in my nose on full blast. Edward seemed to be mimicking me; his hands were above his head, latched onto his scalp, tugging the hair, and watching me in horror with tears flowing freely down his face. I had never seen such pain on his face and when I realized it was me that had caused him to hurt so badly I broke down.

Tears broke through the dam I had built and flooded my face, sobs shook through my body with such an unbeatable force that I could have caused an earthquake, and I could feel tendrils of hair being ripped from my scalp by my fingers and falling to the blankets covering my legs. "Nobody loves me!" I screamed at Edward, tearing my fingers from my hair to rip the IV out of my arm. I tore all of the other wires from my body and leapt out of the bed, heading for the door.

It felt like I was tackled but in reality it was likely that Edward hadn't even been using a quarter of his strength when he lifted me away from the doorknob and cradled me to him like a baby. He screamed for a nurse as I shrieked and howled against him, kicking, clawing, and almost biting his hand. A nurse finally came in with a syringe loaded with clear liquid and a terrified expression at my outrage. She lurched forward and before I knew it she had depressed the syringe and the liquid was coursing through my veins, sedating me.

Edward laid me down on my bed but he didn't leave or make any move to put any distance between us. I wasn't asleep but my muscles had been numbed so I laid there, paralyzed for the most part, limited to wiggling my fingers and toes or moving my head to answer a question. Edward was half lying on my bed with me, his head rested on the pillow with mine and his arms were wrapped around my torso while he was seated in the chair next to the bed.

"No- uddy –uves meh." I mumbled again for the third time, tears still rolling down my face with no intention to stop. It was as if they were making up for all the lost time, for how long they had been trapped in my tear ducts, begging to come out and always beaten back. I felt Edward shake his head against the pillow and he lifted my hand to his mouth to kiss my palm.

"I love you. With every fiber of my being I am in love with you Bella. Why would I be here in this room with you if I didn't love you? Why would my sister run from this room crying when you said those horrible words if she didn't love you? Why would your father be signing you up for help right this moment if he didn't love you? My parents love you, my sister loves you, and I love you. That doesn't sound like nobody to me. That sounds like a lot of somebodies." A whine came from the back of my throat and I began sobbing again, wishing I wasn't numb so I could turn away and hide.

I heard the door open but my head was facing the opposite wall so I couldn't see who it was until they came around to the other side of the bed. It was Alice, with puffy red eyes. Seeing her crying made me feel like the worst person in the world. And to be honest I think I was.

"Charlie wanted me to tell you that you will be leaving for treatment tomorrow." I nodded my head as best as I could. I didn't blame Charlie for not wanting to come in to see me. If I had a daughter that was as big of a disappointment as me I wouldn't want to see her either. "Also Esme wants you to know that she wishes you all the best and for you to try as hard as you can to get better, she's sorry she couldn't make it to say goodbye." I closed my eyes, feeling another rush of guilt as I imagined poor sweet Esme crying over me.

And yet, in the back of my mind all the tears and all the guilt and all the sadness meant nothing. I wasn't going to try to get better. I was going to wait until I was deemed a hopeless case and sent back home where I would wither away back to the wraith that I was just this morning. No one could change me and no amount of begging or pleading could make me change my mind. No one could tell me what to do and I was going to prove it.

* * *

The movie finished and soon it was time for lunch, one of the most dreaded times of the day besides breakfast and dinner. Rosalie and I headed to our usual seats next to each other right in the middle of the table for all the other anorexics. Much like a high school lunch room we were broken into subtle but concrete groups. Two groups to be exact; the Ana's and the Mia's. Can you guess what group I'm in?

The bulimics hated us, and we hated the bulimics. They hated how we had the self control and we hated how they ate like it was their last meal. Even though I used to be one of them they still were the vilest group of girls I had ever seen. Of course Lauren would be one of them. I watched her sit down with a tray loaded with almost everything they offered and immediately picked up a hamburger and shove half of it in her mouth.

My lip curled in disgust, thankful that I at least had a choice of what I had to eat. Rosalie and I got up from the table when we were called and stood in line, glaring at the steamy pizza slices and the greasy cheese that bubbled on top of them. I grabbed a tray and picked up a small apple and a container of yogurt. 80 + 80= 160. I looked to a nurse who frowned at my choice so I picked up a carton of full fat milk (170) to appease her. She looked away, somewhat satisfied, and walked over to the bulimics table to warn a girl to slow down or she would vomit. I think that's what she's aiming for Nurse Pam.

I waited for Rosalie and then we returned to our table; already planning how to hide the milk I had no intentions of drinking. What do you think Rose and I had been whispering about before she was called for the phone? We always wear big clothes so it's easier to hide things we won't eat. Once seated, I opened the yogurt and took tiny, carefully measured bites, letting the sweet artificial taste of strawberries wash over my tongue.

My eyes wandered across the room, counting how many guards they had watching us today. Including Nurse Pam there was three and two were busy flirting with the male cook to pay attention to any of us. Pam had her hands full settling a dispute between two bulimics over who got the cookie someone was too full to eat giving Rose and me the perfect opportunity to slip things under the table and into our underwear.

I pulled the milk below the tabletop and with one last look to make sure no one saw, slithered my hand into my pants, under the waistband of my underwear, and tucked the milk carton right between the fabric of my panties and lady bits. A shiver wracked my body as the icy cardboard seeped through my skin. I looked at Rose's tray and saw that it now mirrored mine; an apple core and a half empty yogurt container. I smirked at her and she giggled, patting her crotch and shivering.

I bit into my apple with a smile. This was how I was going to spend the rest of my time here. I wasn't going to change. Everyone just had to accept that.

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**There's chapter three. Guess how long it took me to write this chapter? Record time that's how long. I started yesterday and I'm done! Shoot this chapter wrote itself practically. Hope the next chapter is the same!**


	4. What Cassie Did

**It's been four months… what can I say, I forgot about this story… maybe I have an early stage of Alzheimer's. Oh dear this would be bad.**

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"Now what makes you say that?" the therapist stared at Bella for the longest time in her infuriating calculating way. As if she could actually cut her open with her eyes and dig out the secrets she was so convinced Bella was hiding in her emaciated body. Dr. Grace was the leading expert in teenage psychology and yet she hadn't made any progress with Bella's case in the four months they had been meeting.

Four months of prison, with no contact with the outside world whatsoever. For one Bella wasn't allowed to read magazines or watch television for fear that seeing the "perfect movie stars" would make her condition worse (as if, Bella would scoff, since she would never compare herself to those heifers). Worst of all she was not allowed visitors as it was considered a privilege she had not yet earned.

Four months without seeing Edward and it was almost enough to make her try to get better so she could see him. Then she would pinch her thigh to get the thoughts out of her head and force herself to do a set of one hundred jumping jacks that left her passed out on her bed where she was woken by an unaffected Rosalie.

"I asked you a question Bella." Dr. Grace was glaring at her with beady brown eyes and then writing yet another annoying note on her evaluation of the session. Most likely it read something like _Patient is continually unresponsive to questions and requires persistent repeating of the same question until an answer is extracted._ Bella could not care less what this chunky psychiatrist thought ofher; she was fat and therefore of no consequence.

"Yes I heard you." Bella hissed, sitting up from the horribly cliché lounge chair in the middle of the room where she was forced to lie every meeting. Bella struggled to keep the look of vertigo off her face that sitting up abruptly had caused; it would only give the doctor more to write about on her stupid little clipboard. "I chose not to answer." She collapsed back on the pillow and wished she had three blankets to cover herself with.

"Well Bella you can't get better unless you talk to me." Bella wanted to mutter that she didn't need to get better in the first place; there was nothing wrong with her. The doctor stared at her silently for a moment and then scribbled a long note on her paper, leaving only the sounds of the pen scratching for a while. Bella was starting to nod off when Dr. Grace suddenly spoke, "We are done for today. Try to think of why you're still in the hospital for when we meet next Tuesday."

Bella rolled her eyes at the doctor's pathetic attempts to make her spill all her deepest feelings and thoughts to her. Did no one ever think that maybe-just maybe- she didn't have a reason for what she was like other than wanting to be thin? That just maybe she wasn't trying to cope with some traumatizing event in her childhood or trying to make up for the love she didn't receive from her parents?

No, she had to have reasons because normal little girls don't starve themselves until they see the outline of their bones through the skin just because they like the way it looks. It always has to be a way to get back at someone. Bella always thought that those kinds of people did drugs or had sex as a way to piss their parents off.

Bella always thought the human race as a whole was too pathetically nosy for its own good. They always had to have answers; they couldn't be content with things just _being._ Why does anyone need to know why Bella did what she did? No matter what Edward says her actions do not directly affect him. She wished she could tell him that; nothing really matters because it's not happening to him.

"Oh Bella everything you do affects me!" Bella muttered in a fake whiny voice as she walked back to her room, scuffing the toe of her slipper on the floor. She reached her room and found Rosalie folding and packing her clothes into her suitcase. She found out she was being transferred to a facility in New York since her father- who had custody of her- was moving there for work and he had to take his baby girl with him. Tomorrow.

"Therapy with Dr. Grace is the worst form of torture they can inflict on me here." Bella groaned, collapsing on her bed and then dragging the blankets over her icy body. Bitterness crept into Rosalie's face at the mention of the doctor. She felt a deep and brooding resentment toward the horrible old woman who forced so many of the girls to be trapped in the bowels of the facility for far too long. Longer than anyone deserved.

A pang of jealousy washed over Bella as she realized Rosalie could and most likely was off to a more high scale institution where she would be prescribed pretty blue pills that would make her feel better and her therapy sessions would be about her and not her problems. A place where she actually had the chance to fix herself and return to the real world of dress up and smiles.

Bella turned away from Rosalie and closed her eyes, falling asleep quickly, exhausted from the amount of energy she expended from an already negative reserve. It wasn't long before she fell into a painfully familiar dream she dreaded every time she went to bed. She didn't even know if it was a dream or her mind torturing her continuously with memories she hated.

_When Bella was a real girl she had a father who loved to take her out to the La Push reservation where they would walk on the beach for an hour every Saturday morning followed by breakfast at Fork's diner. She ordered the same triple stack of chocolate chip pancakes with two strips of bacon and a mug of cocoa every time. And she would eat it all. _

_Charlie would watch as she stuffed forkful after forkful of hot, sweet pancake into her sticky mouth, chomp on the crispy bacon, and slurp down the cocoa, smiling as she enjoyed the meal. It wasn't until she reached the age of fourteen that the calories, fat, and sugar caught up with her and she ballooned to the size of a baby whale._

_The waitress came up to her one fateful day shortly after Bella turned fourteen, her arms loaded with the plates, and smiled at Bella. "Still eating the same breakfast every Saturday huh Bella?" Bella smiled and nodded her head, dumping syrup over the stack. "Well it looks like your metabolism slowed down a little. I would have thought you would have switched tone of our fruit dishes. See you later then." Then she walked away to take an order at the next table._

_Bella didn't think anything of it until she got home and was taking off her muddied pants and noticed something on her body that she never saw before; fat. Rolls and rolls of flubbery, blubbery fat. Her legs jiggled when she shook them, her stomach rolled over the waistband of her sweats and she had a double chin._

_The words of the waitress came to mind, telling her she no longer had the body of her slim young self, ruined by the sugary goodness of the diner's pancakes. She realized it wasn't just the pancakes she ate every Saturday. It was the candy she had in her bedside table drawer, left over from Halloween. The bags of chips and cookies she munched on while she did homework. It was the pizza her father brought home most nights because he was too tired to make an actual meal._

_It was her father. Her father who was never home except on Saturday mornings when he took her to the beach and then to pancakes. It was her father who was never around to tell her to put down the junk and grab an apple._

_How could he have done this to her? Bella cried as she stared at her fat self in the mirror. No, she amended, how could she do this to herself? She thought about the girls at school who were so skinny and pretty and talked to boys and boys liked to talk to them. Then her mind turned to something she heard about in health class. Eating disorders; bulimia and anorexia._

_She had wrinkled her nose at the thought of someone starving or making themselves throw up in order to lose weight then but at that moment however she wanted to do whatever she could in order to be skinny._ _So when her father called up the stairs to tell her he had to leave for a work emergency she made the decision to do something about her weight._

_She turned on the shower, stripped off her clothes, got in the shower, put her fingers in her mouth, wiggled them a little, and… nothing. She gagged a little but nothing came out like she expected. She became frustrated so she pushed a little harder and a little clump of pancake fell out of her mouth. She was encouraged so she did it again and again and again. Retching and spewing bile she finally sat up, her back sore from hunching over. But on her face was a triumphant smile; she had done it._

Bella woke up from her dream with a start, her heart racing and cold sweat covering her forehead and dripping down her back. It wasn't like it was a particularly exciting dream; it was just her mind teasing her with images she would rather purge from her mind like the food she would purge into the toilet bowl or shower drain three times a day.

The room was dark and everything was silent; not even the television coming from down the hall or some girl crying like one was most nights. Bella sat up, slipped on her thick pink robe, and pulled the belt tight around her waist. She whispered Rosalie's name but no answer came from the other bed in the room, leading Bella to fear the worst.

She reached for the lamp on the table in between their beds and switched it on; already knowing what she would see when she twisted the little knob. Rosalie's bed was empty and perfectly made with only a folded piece of paper resting on her pillow. Bella flopped onto her ex-roommate's bed, dragging herself farther up until she was lying in the middle on her stomach. She could still smell Rosalie's shampoo in the pillow and couldn't believe the hospital was so cheap that they didn't even replace the pillows with fresh ones.

Then she remembered the letter which made the thoughts of whether she was sleeping on the same sheets and pillow dozens of others had used leave her mind. She unfolded the paper slowly, wondering what the letter held in store. Was it a lamentation of how sad she was to be leaving her? Was it a hate filled message, telling Bella she was the fattest and ugliest person she had ever met? Those questions ran through Bella's mind until she started reading.

_Bella, I can't believe I have to say goodbye to you through a letter. Nurse Pam just told me my dad is going to pick me up earlier than I expected so I decided to write a letter since I don't want to wake you up from such a peaceful sleep. So I guess I'll start by saying I love you, you crazy, beautiful bitch. I don't think I will ever meet anyone that I love as much as you. During the time we spent together I felt like I could- and did- tell you everything, stuff that I could never reveal to anyone. Isn't it strange how you can meet and love someone you find in the worst place in the world? I know someday we'll be together again to keep each other strong as we go through this horrible life. You have to promise me that you won't give in and get fat but also stay strong and don't die. Don't you dare leave me or I'll find you and kick you're skinny butt. In turn I'll promise to stay strong enough to be with you. Goodbye Bella, my dearest friend. I love you and I hope I can see you soon. Love Rosalie._

Bella was in tears at the end of the letter, her nose dripping and falling onto the paper, smudging the ink, blurring the words. When the words became indiscernible Bella panicked and dabbed at the droplets on the page, trying to save the beautiful letter written by her best friend. A few words were ruined but as a whole it was still understandable.

Bella wiped her eyes and nose, frowning at the gross green mucus that soaked the tissue paper, trickling over the sides. After discarding the tissue, Bella stood from the bed and left the room, feeling the need to get out of its confines and stretch her legs. She wasn't sure if everyone was sleeping so she was careful where she placed her feet and attempted to avoid stumbling.

The hallway seemed darker than it should have been and even the nurse's station didn't have a sound coming out of it, not even the low murmur of the women who were her keepers. She made it to the empty living room and switched on the television, absently changing channels, never interested in anything showing.

It was a while before she finally found one of the horribly cheesy Lifetime movies about a mother struggling with her rebelling daughter. One of thousands that they show. Bella always complained that they were unrealistic and all were the same; previously perfect daughter changes due to rape/drugs/abusive boyfriend and the poor mother tries to find out what's wrong and _save her little girl_.

But this one seemed to be different than the awful low-budget ones the channel always played. It was different because it was about a girl with an eating disorder and her struggles in a rehabilitation clinic. A girl who was thin, pale, and dark-haired. Those similarities were enough to capture Bella's attention and pull her into that movie for the next hour and a half.

By the end Bella could hardly believe how much of herself she could see in the character Cassie. It offered Bella a whole new perspective on why it was that people wanted her to get better. Were people crying over her right now wondering if she would get better? Was there a memorial at school where people prayed she would get better (she seriously doubted that one)?

Bella was astounded that a movie she would have written off as pathetic and cliché if she had just read the summary had been able to make her think in such a way that a doctor had failed at for four months. So when morning finally came and the hospital was once more filled with the sounds she was used to, Bella had made up her mind that she would really honestly try to get better. It would be a long road but now she knew that she had quite a few people in her life that she had to keep living for.

Even if it meant she would have to get fat.

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**There it is- chapter 4. Hope everyone has a decent Thanksgiving.**


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